News to me but Sherri Shepherd is on the new season of Dancing With the Stars and there’s already a controversy brewing. Sources claim Sherri began rehearsing with Maksim Chmerkovskiy before anyone else knew they were on the show. She was seen with him at dance studios in workout gear and dance shoes back in December.

ABC has strict guidelines (really? come on, really?) that contestants can’t rehearse until they learn they’re on the show. This season’s cast wasn’t revealed until Feb. 28.

On The View this morning, Sherri took the time to deny the allegations saying she’s not partnered with Maksim.

“We have never, I say never, we’ve never danced together,” Shepherd said, adding that she was nervous.

“I’ve never danced with Maks, I’ve never danced with Val,” she said.

Shepherd admitted that she had taken dance classes at Maksim’s studio, but said they began “long before I stated negotiations with ‘Dancing With the Stars.’” Fox News

To be fair, does it really matter? She needs all the help she can get. It’s like when you play basketball with a kid in a wheelchair. You’ll look like a dick calling him out for double dribbling. Plus, there’s no way Sherri can two-step past a craft services table without taking a snack break. Not without extensive training.

First Nancy Grace has a nip slip that she vehemently denies happened despite all evidence to the contrary and now she’s farting on national tv. Right after Nancy finishes being interviewed about her routine, she goes down a little too far and lets one rip. They cut away before things could get too awkward.

Wait. It was a fart, right? Oh god, tell me it was. Because the only alternative is it was a queef and the last thing I need is a visual of Nancy Grace queefing. I’d rather pound railroad spikes into my eyes than imagine that.

One thing women love is getting advice from their ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend. It just warms their hearts.

E!, trying to instigate, asked Stacy if she had any advice for the current contestants on this season’s Dancing With the Stars, one of which is Elisabetta Canalis.

“You can’t stop thinking about the dance,” she told me at the Appleton Estate Reserve bartender challenge last night. “When you’re sleeping, when you’re cooking, when you are doing whatever you are doing. I think it is important that you put all that hard work into it and when you go out there, you just have to let it go and have so much fun and really try to entertain the crowd and just have a great time.”

You hear that Elisabetta Canalis? George Clooney’s current flavor of the month says you have to focus. Unlike what you did during your relationship with George where you went out and swore in interviews that you’d eventually be married. Maybe if you had your eyes on the prize, you wouldn’t be fading into obscurity and wouldn’t have had a dismal opening performance on the show.

Hopefully I’ve fanned the flames enough to where I can just sit back and watch the cat fight. Muahahahaha.

Dancing With the Stars is where celebrities go for one last claw at fame. Hence, why George Clooney’s ex-girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis will be on the upcoming 13th season of the show.

Elisabetta would be following in the footsteps of Clooney’s rumored new girlfriend, Stacy Keibler, who starred in the second season of DWTS. Canalis also would be pulling a Melissa Rycroft, bouncing back from a very public split by shaking her groove thing.

That makes only 1 more season until she completely fades from the collective memory of America and is replaced by a pregnant teen mom. At least she’ll still be famous in Italy where dating George Clooney automatically makes you queen. “Bellissimo,” Italians will cheer while throwing their pizza dough into the air. That’s what they do there, right? My stereotypes are a little rusty.

In news that will really help those gay rumors, Kirstie Alley enlisted John Travolta to help her with her routine on Dancing With the Stars. A string of accidents have caused her to be the center of attention on YouTube recaps so she brought in “The Dance Doctor” to clear the bad “juju”.

“Last week we survived, but I don’t want anyone to have any doubts: I’m in this to win this. I want to be the frontrunner!”
Before performing her raunchy foxtrot to Lenny Kravtiz’s ‘American Woman’ on the show last night (18.04.11), Kirstie admitted she was hoping to “create magic” following her visit from ‘The Dance Doctor’ John.
She joked: “Now that we’ve had a session with ‘The Dance Doctor’, the bad juju is gone and with this dance, we’re going to create magic.”
Earning a score of 23 out of a possible 30 for the routine, judge Carrie Ann Inaba praised the duo for their “bold, ambitious and borderline crazy” take on the foxtrot.
Carrie said: “That was a different take on a foxtrot, but it absolutely suited you. It was bold, it was ambitious, it was a little borderline crazy! You did it – it was magical and I think it was your best dance ever!”

Of course Kristie Alley said “juju”. She probably licked her lips afterward and said, “Mmmm, jujubes.” More importantly, why is John Travolta a dance doctor. Saturday Night Fever was 14 years ago. Since then, his biggest achievement was magically growing his hair back. This is like Jennifer Love Hewitt calling herself “The Love Doctor”.

Here’s Maksim dry humping Kirstie and Kirstie trying to cop a feel. Actually I don’t know what they’re doing but this made the most sense.

Last week, Kirstie Alley’s partner’s thighs gave up under the strain of carrying her and she ended up hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes. “Mm, potatoes,” Alley thought to herself.

This week on Dancing With the Stars, her shoe quit her. At least it tried to before she forced it back onto her pudgy little feet. Alley joked to Us,

“I think it’s a conspiracy! I think the other girls cut my shoe! I don’t know if I handled it well or not well!” she added of the dropped shoe. “When your shoe comes off, you either put it back on or you take it off, one or the other.”

But Alley’s still confident about Tuesday’s results show. “I want to win. And I want to win by being the best! I got an 8 — but I can’t help but think if I did the dance correctly, we could have gotten some 9s. I really do want to be a good dancer and I’m working on it.”

She added that she doesn’t want to “become the mercy f***”, garnering sympathy votes from fans. “I want people to vote for me because I’m good. I really do!”

To be fair, everyone agrees sympathy votes are her best chance at winning. And she’s going to get them. Watching her have a mini-heart attack and not die after every routine is amazing. You’d think whenever she lays on the ground like that, she won’t be getting back up without a specially designed pulley system, but look, she did it! To hell with gravity! What an inspiration.

It was bound to happen. Three weeks into Dancing With the Stars, Maksim Chmerkovskiy legs finally gave out while trying to lug around Kirstie Alley. The two were dancing the rumba to Over the Rainbow when only 20 seconds in, Maksim’s leg tapped out.

Managing to finish the dance, Maksim wanted to make it clear afterward that his thighs didn’t give out because Kirstie was too fat. Right. And unicorns exist. Of course it’s because she’s fat. I’m impressed he even made it three weeks without this happening. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t fall through the floor like a cartoon.

Skip to 2:20 to see it.

Last night, Kirstie Alley performed her first dance with her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy at the premiere of Dancing With the Stars. Kirstie shimmied across the stage while Maksim struggled to support all the weight. Surprisingly, she did well according to the judges who may or may not be grading on the Kirstie Alley curve which is more of an inverted bell curve because the regular bell curve can’t support the weight.

However, the most impressive part was Alley’s heart didn’t explode mid-routine. That thing must have been pumping at 300 beats per minute trying to force blood through her clogged arteries. You could tell she was tired too because she still couldn’t stop wheezing after 5 minutes. I’m surprised her contract doesn’t require an oxygen mask after every performance.

File this under, “Whaaaaa?” According to RadarOnline, Heidi Montag, who’s now 90% plastic parts, was forced to turn down a role on Dancing With the Stars due to a contractual agreement she signed when working on The Hills.

The role was actually an offer to host the show back in 2008 before Brooke Burke took the job. A little later, she was asked to be a contestant but agreements with The Hills and I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! kept her from accepting again.

This was all pre-surgery of course and now it looks like she’ll never get another chance. A source explained, “It was before her surgeries and so I’m not sure if she wants to risk it now. She already took an elbow from a dancer on the set of her song, Overdosin’, and she’s scared of getting hurt.”

Why can’t they just have a guy with a portable welder on standby the entire time during the show. That way if Heidi’s nose or whatever gets knocked, it’ll take all of two minutes backstage to melt that sucker and shape it back.

Now that Lindsay Lohan has hit rock bottom professionally, this is the perfect opportunity for Dancing with the Stars to pick at her career’s rotting carcass and prey on Lindsay’s need to star in something remotely relevant.

“Dancing with the Stars producers have had Lindsay on their wish list of castmates for a very long time,” a source with knowledge of the situation told RadarOnline.com. When asked about the news, a rep for the show said they do not comment on casting.

“The producers were concerned about her erratic behavior, but they are taking another look at asking her to come on for the next season because she is doing so well at her sober living facility,” the source added. “The producers are aware that she would be available because she isn’t going to be filming Inferno.”

Just realize that you need to be pretty messed up for DWTS to think twice about casting you and DWTS is already pretty low on the totem pole of fame. Any lower and you’d be in 2 AM infomercials. Not only that, with the amount Lindsay smokes, she’ll have no cardio at all. One minute into the routine she’ll be clutching her chest wheezing and tapping out.

Well… that’s one way to hide her face. Not very subtle, but it works.

I have disappointing news. Susan Boyle has pulled out of Tuesday’s episode of Dancing With the Stars. Susan was slotted to sing ‘Hallelujah’ tomorrow but the shows rep confirms she won’t be appearing. Susan missed her flight to LA. Her performance for tomorrow was supposed to be taped this evening.

No one knows what happened but knowing Susan, someone called her fat and made her cry again. Sheesh. So sensitive.

In three weeks, there will be a big reunion of season 10′s cast of Dancing With the Stars. The only person not attending is Kate Gosselin. Because she wasn’t invited. Because everyone hates her.

An insider tells Popeater, “Her invite must have gotten lost in the mail. Of course she was not invited! We all became close during and after the show except Kate who hasn’t returned anyone’s calls or emails. You know it’s bad when even creepy bachelor, Jake Pavelka, gets invited but she doesn’t.”

They go on to say Kate hasn’t talked to anyone since the show, not even her dance partner who spent hours practicing with her. Popeater talked to a relationship expert who explained it’s because Kate is an opportunistic fame whore. He then went on to say that the sky was blue and fire is hot. That guy is really good at stating the obvious.